A Radio Host Called Tom Brady’s 5-Year-Old a Nasty Name, and I’m Not Surprised

This morning Facebook was all abuzz about New England Patriots football great Tom Brady cutting short a weekly radio interview with Boston’s WEEI…one has he has done week after week for years. The reason why? On another of the station’s programs, one of the station’s hosts, Alex Reimer, called Brady’s 5-year-old daughter Vivian “a little pissant.”

OH NO HE DIT-INT.

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Reimer, who was pretty much immediately suspended for his comments, was talking about a scene in the documentary “Tom vs. Time.” But it doesn’t matter if Vivian WAS misbehaving or not, or if Reimer was just wrong, and biased against Brady in general.

He called a child a derogatory name…for behaving like...a child.

Check out the following audio to hear Brady’s response. He behaved like a true Papa Bear, but a gentlemanly one. I give him ALL the accolades for standing up for his little girl. He said he’s going to have to think about whether or not he will continue his relationship with the station…and the station is, I’m sure quaking in their boots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz7L6f0KKuE

As much as Reimer’s comments disgust me, they don’t really SURPRISE me. I don’t know if he has children or not, but my heart hopes that a FATHER is not capable of making such a scathing remark about an innocent child.

Because my heart KNOWS that most of the world is fully, fully capable. The truth is, we live in a world where children are seen as a nuisance. They are seen to delay the things that really matter in life: a successful career, material wealth, world travel, and a full and free sex life. Young women are told to push their fertility to its limits and accomplish all they can before giving it all up to have a child. Men are told that getting a woman pregnant is surely a “trap” that will keep them bound to home instead of fulfilling their potential.

So, it does not surprise me that a sports broadcasting professional can see and hear the typical moanings and groanings of a normal five-year-old child who belongs to the most successful football quarterback of all time, and call her “a pissant.” He sees her as annoyance, a distraction that takes away from Brady’s football career. I pity Alex Reimer. I pity him because he is too blind to see that Brady surely considers this child his greatest achievement, more valuable than a thousand Super Bowl rings.

I know everyone makes mistakes, and I hope that Reimer learns from his. I am glad his employer disciplined him for this infraction, and I am glad Tom Brady spoke up for his child. He’s quite correct when he says “my daughter or any child, they certainly don’t deserve that.”

They certainly don’t. They deserve just as much respect for their humanity as any adult does, no matter their parentage. And they certainly deserve to be seen as more than just an inconvenience or a jewel in a parent’s crown full of achievements.